Reinsurance and capital solutions broker Augment Risk has appointed Kurt Cripps (pictured) to a newly created position, group head of growth and broking, effective immediately.
The role sits alongside his existing responsibilities as head of global parametric, which he will continue during a transitional handover period.
Cripps will work with Augment Risk's broking leads on strategic client relationships, complex placements and wider market strategy, drawing on senior market contacts built over more than a decade in the sector. The parametric team, based across Miami and London, continues reporting to him in the interim.
Cripps joined Augment Risk in October 2023 to build its parametric offering from the ground up, an area that has since become one of the firm's more visible specialisms. Before that, he spent 13 years at Aon, most recently as managing director for innovation and solutions and global head of weather, giving him deep grounding in climate-linked and index-based risk transfer before Augment Risk existed as a business.
That background matters for the growth role because parametric and alternative capital solutions sit at the sharper end of where reinsurance brokers are currently competing hardest for client mandates.
Parametric structures moved from niche to mainstream fairly quickly once they proved themselves at scale.
When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in late October 2025, the World Bank confirmed a full payout of its US$150 million catastrophe bond within days, based on pre-agreed triggers tied to the storm's central pressure and path rather than a lengthy loss-adjustment process. Combined with other parametric covers the country held, Jamaica's government said the total disaster-risk financing package released came to roughly US$650 million within two months of landfall, funds that would typically take far longer to reach a government through traditional indemnity claims.
That kind of speed is precisely the selling point Cripps has spent his career building expertise around, and it is why brokers advising corporate and sovereign clients on catastrophe exposure are paying closer attention to which firms have genuine parametric depth rather than a bolted-on offering.
Putting that expertise in charge of group-wide growth, rather than keeping it siloed in a specialist division, suggests Augment Risk wants parametric thinking to influence how it pitches for broader, more complex placements generally.
The appointment continues a run of senior hires at Augment Risk. The firm recently added Lee Bonnett to develop its MGA client base, and has previously expanded into insurance-linked securities and formed a parametric risk transfer partnership with Moody's RMS.
Since launching in 2023 with backing from Altamont Capital Partners, the firm has steadily added specialist capability rather than scaling a single product line.
Chief executive Andrew Matson said the appointment reflects Cripps' contribution to the business and confidence in his ability to scale that success. "It is also a testament to the strength of our talent pool and the type of entrepreneurial leaders our model attracts," he added, saying the firm expects the expanded role to deliver benefits for staff and clients alike.
Independent brokers scaling up against the Aons and Guy Carpenters of the world tend to do it in one of two ways: buying growth through acquisition, or promoting proven specialists into broader commercial roles and betting they can replicate their results at scale.
Augment Risk has leaned toward the latter with this appointment, which carries less integration risk but puts more pressure on one individual's ability to originate business across a wider client base than any single specialism previously required.
Given how quickly parametric and alternative capital solutions are moving from supplementary cover to core disaster-response infrastructure, that bet looks reasonably well timed.
